Keith Acheson and
Meredith Gall’s
Technical Supervision
vs.
Madeline Hunter’s
Decision Making
Half Baked or Fully Baked?
A Comparison
Copyright Lisa Buck 2006
Rationale - Teachers…
Acheson and Gall
need to acquire
specific
intellectual &
behavioral skills to
improve
instruction.
Hunter
should be expert
diagnosticians: base
decisions about
instruction on
principles derived from
science of human
learning.
Rationale Supervisors…
Acheson and Gall
have responsibility
to help teachers
develop skillsincludes ability to
analyze instruction
using systematic
data and to
experiment, adapt,
and modify the
curriculum.
Hunter
can help teachers by
observing them in action
and by documenting the
presence or absence of
research-based cause-andeffect relationships
between teacher behavior
and student learning.
The Primary Goal of Clinical Supervision…
Acheson and Gall
…the professional development of
teachers, with a special focus on
performance in the classroom.
Goals Clarified
Acheson and Gall
• Furnishing teachers with unbiased feedback
concerning their instruction.
• Diagnosing and solving problems related to
instruction.
• Helping teachers to acquire skill in
instructional techniques.
• Evaluating teacher performance for making
decisions about promotion & tenure.
• Helping teachers acquire positive attitudes
related to on going professional growth.
The Essence of Teaching …
Hunter
….is Decision Making
Decision Making Clarified
Hunter
Decisions are derived from the
scientific study of human learning.
Process
Acheson and Gall
• Stage 1: Planning conference.
• Stage 2: Classroom observation.
• Stage 3: Feedback conference.
Process
Hunter
• Phase 1: In-service
• Phase 2: Observation and script taping
• Phase 3: Analysis
• Phase 4: Conference
• Phase 5. Follow-up
Six Conference Types
Hunter
•
•
•
•
•
Type A Instructional Conference
Type B Instructional Conference
Type C Instructional Conference
Type EX Instructional Conference
Type E Evaluative Conference
Distinguishing Features
Acheson and Gall
• rationalized approach, strives for democratic
interaction between teacher & supervisor.
• objective classroom reality assumed: can be
counted, tallied, & measured with variety of
techniques for recording classroom observations.
• supervisors avoid giving teachers direct advice.
• teachers & supervisors encouraged to develop
own individual style within set of parameters.
• practical compromise between clinical supervision
& formal summative evaluation is possible.
Distinguishing Features
Hunter
• effective teaching viewed 1st as a science, then an
art.
• preobservation conference considered unnecessary
& even undesirable.
• supervisor records verbatim transcript of words &
behaviors during lesson using method of shorthand
called script taping.
• data analyzed by supervisor - labels patterns of
teacher behavior using specific preexisting
categories.
• person who supervises teachers to improve
instruction is preferably same person who evaluates
them for purposes of tenure and contract renewal.
In Summary
Acheson and Gall
Preference for supervision
centers on teachers concerns; is
democratic instead of autocratic
and is interactive instead of
directive.
In Summary
Hunter
The essence of teaching is decision making.
Principles of effective teaching that are derived
from the scientific study of human learning can be
used to guide teachers’ behavior so that more
students learn and all students learn faster.
Teaching can become and art form when teachers
consciously and deliberately combine specific
procedures of diagnosis and decision making with
intuition to guide their practice. Furthermore,
these principals of teaching can be both taught and
learned.
Meet the Authors
• Keith A. Acheson, professor emeritus University of Oregon
• B.S., 1948
• M.S., 1951, Lewis and Clark
• Ed.D., 1964, Stanford. (1967)
Meet the Authors
Meredith Gall
University of Oregon
EDUCATION
Ph.D., Psychology, University of
California at Berkeley, 1968.
Ed.M., Developmental Psychology,
Harvard School of Education, 1963.
A.B., English, Harvard University, 1963
Meet the Authors
Hunter, Madeline Cheek
(1916–1994)
• Entered the University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA), at the age of sixteen. She earned four degrees
in psychology and education. In the early 1960s Hunter
became principal of the University Elementary School,
the laboratory school at UCLA, where she worked under
John Goodlad. She left the school in 1982 amidst
controversy over her methods, but continued at UCLA as
a professor in administration and teacher education.
• The creator of the Instructional Theory Into Practice
(ITIP) teaching model, an inservice/staff development
program widely used during the 1970s and 1980s.